COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a new coronavirus introduced to humans for the first time. It is spread from person to person mainly through the droplets produced when an infected person... speaks, coughs or sneezes. Watch this short animation to learn more about COVID-19 and how to protect yourself against it.
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Schistosomiasis is an infectious disease caused by helminth parasites of the genus Schistosoma. Worldwide, an estimated 250 million people are infected with these parasites with the majority of case...s occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. Within Asia, three species of Schistosoma cause disease. Schistosoma japonicum is the most prevalent, followed by S. mekongi and S. malayensis. All three species are zoonotic, which causes concern for their control, as successful elimination not only requires management of the human definitive host, but also the animal reservoir hosts. With regard to Asian schistosomiasis, most of the published research has focused on S. japonicum with comparatively little attention paid to S. mekongi and even less focus on S. malayensis. In this review, we examine the three Asian schistosomes and their current status in their endemic countries: Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, and Thailand (S. mekongi); Malaysia (S. malayensis); and Indonesia, People’s Republic of China, and the Philippines (S. japonicum). Prospects for control that could potentially lead to elimination are highlighted as these can inform researchers and disease control managers in other schistosomiasis-endemic areas, particularly in Africa and the Americas.
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Rabies is an infectious viral disease that is almost always fatal once clinical symptoms appear.
In most cases, the disease is transmitted to huma...ns by the bite of a rabid dog, but infection can also spread through scratches or via saliva.
Rabies kills one person every 9 minutes and children aged 5–14 years are frequent victims.
Yet rabies is 100% vaccine preventable. Vaccinating dogs is the most cost-effective way to prevent rabies in people.
Education about dog behaviour, immediate care measures after a bite, responsible dog ownership and bite prevention are essential components of rabies elimination.
WHO and partners aim to achieve zero human rabies deaths by 2030.
The time to act is now.
More information: http://www.who.int/rabies/en/
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Human strongyloidiasis is a chronic parasitic disease caused by infection with Strongyloides stercoralis, a soil-transmitted helminth that is estimated to infect 300–600 million people worldwide. ...This neglected tropical disease (NTD) is endemic globally, predominately in the South-East Asia, African and Western Pacific regions, and in South and Central America. Strongyloidiasis has a wide range of clinical presentations, including subclinical disease, symptomatic disease (often with diarrhoea, abdominal pain and urticaria) and a rare but deadly complication of hyperinfection with disseminated disease. The feared complication of disseminated strongyloidiasis can occur in the setting of immunocompromising conditions (e.g. human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 infection and malignancies) or immunosuppressive medications (e.g. steroids) and has an estimated case-fatality rate exceeding 60%. The standard treatment for chronic S. stercoralis infection is oral medication with ivermectin.
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Health care-associated infection (HCAI) places a serious disease burden and has a significant economic impact on patients and health-care systems throughout the world. Yet good hand hygiene, the ...simple task of cleaning hands at the right times and in the right way, can save lives. World Health Organization (WHO) has developed evidence-based WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care to support health-care facilities to improve hand hygiene and thus reduce HCAI.
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Preventing tuberculosis infection from progressing to tuberculosis disease is a crucial component of the goal to eliminate tuberculosis. When deciding on the use of tuberculosis preventive therapy a...mong household contacts, policy makers regularly ask questions, such as whether tuberculosis preventive therapy is effective, safe, and feasible in a programme setting and what it will cost. For contact management and tuberculosis preventive therapy for multidrug-resistant and rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis, studies from high-income and low-income countries have shown feasibility, safety, and effectiveness.
However, there is scarce information on the cost of tuberculosis preventive therapy for multidrug-resistant and rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis. In The Lancet Global Health, Peter Dodd and colleagues show that household contact management strategies are cost-effective even in low-income and middle-income countries, which has important policy implications for achieving the END TB Strategy goals.
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Antimicrobials are precious agents for combating infectious diseases and had saved millions of lives throughout the world. However, the current trend of increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) ha...s become a global health problem with increased morbidity and mortality in infectious diseases. Sri Lanka is not an exemption and face many health related issues with multidrug resistant (MDR) organisms. Currently there is a global effort in combating antimicrobial resistance. WHO extends its fullest support and plays a major role in motivating the countries to combat antimicrobial resistance with national action plans in place. Sri Lanka has initiated combating AMR with multisectoral collaboration, under one health concept. The development of the National Strategic Plan (NSP) 2017-2022 provides the roadmap to combat AMR.
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Antibiotics have been useful in fighting infectious diseases in our country for decades, but because of the overuse and misuse of these agents, an increasing number of organisms are now resistant to... them. The Philippines, like other Southeast Asian countries, has already been encountering the many challenges of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) which include increasing social and economic costs and rising patient mortality. Although considered a global threat, it is already an emerging local health concern which calls for an urgent collaboration among different sectors to provide solutions addressing this growing problem.
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Histoplasmosis is a disease caused by the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. This disease is highly endemic in some regions of North America, Central America, and South America and is also reported in c...ertain countries of Asia and Africa. It often affects people with impaired immunity, including people living with HIV, among whom the most frequent clinical presentation is disseminated histoplasmosis. The symptoms of disseminated histoplasmosis are non-specific and may be indistinguishable from those of other infectious diseases, especially disseminated tuberculosis (TB), thus complicating diagnosis and treatment. Histoplasmosis is one of the most frequent opportunistic infections caused by fungal pathogens among people living with HIV in the Americas and may be responsible for 5–15% of AIDS-related deaths every year in this Region. These guidelines aim to provide recommendations for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of disseminated histoplasmosis in persons living with HIV
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May 2020 International Journal of Infectious Diseases 96 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.05.003
Trachoma is one of oldest infectious diseases known to humans. It is caused by the bacteria Chlamydia trachomatis, which is transmitted through contact with eye secretions of infected people (shared... use of towels and handkerchiefs, contact with fingers, etc.), as well by flies that help spread it.
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Schistosomiasis is a helminthic infection and one of the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). It is caused by blood flukes of the genus Schistosoma. It is an important public health problem, particul...arly in poverty-stricken areas, especially those within the tropics and subtropics. It is estimated that at least 236 million people worldwide are infected, 90% of them in sub-Saharan Africa, and that this disease causes approximately 300,000 deaths annually. The clinical manifestations are varied and affect practically all organs. There are substantial differences in the clinical presentation, depending on the phase and clinical form of schistosomiasis in which it occurs. Schistosomiasis can remain undiagnosed for a long period of time, with secondary clinical lesion. Here, we review the clinical profile of schistosomiasis. This information may aid in the development of more efficacious treatments and improved disease prognosis.
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Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a neglected infectious endemic disease that is transmitted through the bite of a vector insect (sandfly) of the Lutzomyia genus,typical of rural geographical territor...ies, and causes disfiguring skin ulcers and disabilities. It is estimated that CL affects between 600 000 and 1 000 000 people a year around the world, mainly in the America s, the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East and Central Asia. Eighteen of the 21 countries that make up the Latin American (LA) region are considered endemic areas for this neglected tropical disease. Colombia is one of the countries that reports the majority of global cases with 6161 in 2020 and has the second highest number of cases in the Americas, after Brazil.
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Tuberculosis (TB) is the deadliest infectious disease in most low- and middle-income countries, claiming more than 4,000 lives each day. The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has seriously impacted pe...ople with pre-existing health conditions. People with TB are usually more vulnerable to other infections, including the novel coronavirus, due to pre-existing lung damage. They are also at higher risk of developing complications from COVID-19.
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Gambiense human African trypanosomiasis is a deadly infectious disease affecting West and Central Africa, South Sudan and Uganda, and transmitted between humans by tsetse flies. The ...ribute-to-highlight medbox">disease has caused several major epidemics, the latest one in the 1990s. Thanks to recent innovations such as rapid diagnostic tests for population screening, a single-dose oral treatment and a highly efficient vector control strategy, interruption of transmission of the causative parasite is now within reach. If indeed gHAT has an exclusively human reservoir, this could even result in eradication of the disease. Even if there were an animal reservoir, on the basis of epidemiological data, it plays a limited role. Maintaining adequate postelimination surveillance in known historic foci, using the newly developed tools, should be sufficient to prevent any future resurgence.
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Scabies is a skin infection that is a result of direct skin to skin contact and is primarily mediated by close and extended contact with scabies infested person. Scabies occurs worldwide among people of all ages, races, genders and social classes an...d has been identified as a neglected tropical infectious disease. Globally, it affects more than 130 million people at any time.
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This calculator implements a classical infectious disease model — SEIR (Susceptible → Exposed → Infected → Removed), an idealized model of spread still used in frontlines of research e.g.
Infections by the soil-transmitted helminths (STH), including Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, Ancylostoma duodenale/Necator americanus (hookworms), and Strongyloides stercoralis, disproportionately affect children around the world. Becaus...e of their transmission associated with poor sanitary conditions and inadequate hygiene practices, higher burden of disease is seen in children from developing countries from sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Approximately 267 million preschool-age children (PSAC) and 568 million school-age children (SAC) worldwide are at risk of STH infection as well as impaired child growth and cognitive development from A. lumbricoides, T. trichiura, and hookworm infections, and death due to severe S. stercoralis infection. Thus, their control is a global health priority.
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Map of Distribution of clonorchiasis, worldwide.
Foodborne trematodes are a group of diseases that include the parasites Clonorchis, Opisthorchis, Fasciola and Paragonimus. These parasitic flukes have a complex life cycle involving diverse definit...ive hosts and one or two intermediate hosts. Foodborne trematodes cause infection in humans via the consumption of contaminated food (raw fish, crustaceans or vegetables). Infection can result in severe liver and lung disease and together these diseases are estimated to cause 2 million life years lost to disability and death worldwide every year.
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Fact Sheet, May 2018.
Nipah virus (NiV) is a zoonotic virus (it is transmitted from animals to humans) and can also be transmitted through contaminated food or directly between people. In infected people, it causes a range of illnesses from asymptomatic (subclinical) ...ight medbox">infection to acute respiratory illness and fatal encephalitis. The virus can also cause severe disease in animals such as pigs, resulting in significant economic losses for farmers
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